


A Growing Place

by KingSubmar



Series: All These People I've Killed [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8875735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingSubmar/pseuds/KingSubmar
Summary: Kylo comes home for his boyfriend Finn and everything was going okay until Luke Skywalker shows up with his new apprentice.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I said I would, so here. I'm not super happy with it but I couldn't look at it any more. I promise it'll get more cohesive

Behind the abode was a patch of bare soil, toiled loose and it filled the space with its clean scent. Finn stood in an arched entryway looking out at it and Kylo sits sprawled in an armchair looking at him, one nonchalant and one, the latter, feigning nonchalance.

“What happened out there?” Finn asks. Last time he graced this place with his presence, that patch was covered in grass and trees like everything else.

“I made a growing place. I admit I was starting to get a bit bored, not that horticulture isn’t boring.”

“I’ve always wanted to grow something.” He sees the product every day yet the process confounds him. All he knows is that it takes time and it tickles him to be a life custodian, even over one so chemical.

“You can! I’ll show you how. It isn’t hard on a planet like this,” Kylo says, perking up.

Kylo should be happy with any contact he and Finn have, but he hates the restraint he needs to employ around him now. During their time in the Order, Finn was his; he saw him when he wanted to, touched him when he wanted to. Now everything’s on Finn’s terms and he finds himself lost in clumsy courting attempts and trying to make himself seem more palatable overall.

It isn’t working.

“Rey’s going to love it here,” Finn says innocently.

Kylo slumps back down in his chair at the mention of the girl, “so you’ve said,” he mutters under his breath. “Yes, I suppose that scavenger’s had a hard life.”

Finn turns to look at him, finally giving him most of his attention. It’s like stepping into the rays of a sun, chasing away the chill of space. Though it also feels like observing a sleeping Krayt dragon only to find one of its eyes open.

“She’s a Jedi.”

“Almost,” he says contemplatively. “I doubt there will be opportunities for her to enjoy any local frivolities, Skywalker will want to keep her leashed.”

“Does that mean the three of you will be spending a lot of time together?” Finn shoots back, because he knows what Kylo’s doing.

“He’d be a fool to keep her around me.” Truly, after what he’d done.

Finn’s face begins to fall into a frown.

“Not that I’d hurt her,” he adds quickly, “it’s just he doesn’t know that.”

Finn doesn’t say much after that, and leaves soon after, but not without giving in to Kylo’s promises and pleas, and planting a seed of his own. It will hopefully keep this place in his mind, keep it relevant and keep him coming back.

It seems that Finn and the scavenger have formed some sort of bond in the hours that they spent together. Kylo knew of her feelings for Finn but it never once occurred to him that they might be reciprocated; she was dirty and lonely and pathetic and somehow, she bested him. He was the monster and she the knight. Jealous isn’t the word, more like slighted and enraged about it, and beneath all that was a shame that had no doubt buried itself in his bones. That girl will never experience love like the love Kylo holds for Finn, that they are so connected after so short a time says something that Kylo isn’t quite ready to face yet.

He had looked forward to killing her but he couldn’t think of anything that would make Finn hate him more. When she comes, he decides to be pleasant.

 

 

 

Someone walks into their sleeping quarters and that’s all it takes to wake him. If war is hell, Finn is a demon.

He can’t see them yet in the darkness but he follows their movements as they make their way to his bunk.

“Finn.”

“Rey!”

She shushes him lowly.

“Nothing short of an emergency alarm will wake them,” he tells her, but he shuffles out of bed and pulls her out of the room.

They look at each other for a moment in the low light of the hallway, then embrace, but out of mutual selfish comfort.

Still in each other’s arms, they pull apart and look at one another once more.

“I’m so glad you’re awake. You look perfect,” she says.

“And I’m glad you’re finally back. I heard you kicked Kylo’s ass.”

She rolls her eyes but fondly, and lets him go. “Something like that.”

“Go Rey.”

They walk together, going nowhere just walking and enjoying this closeness.

“What have you been doing?”

“Nothing as interesting as becoming a Jedi. What’s Luke Skywalker like?”

“You’ll have to see that for yourself, I can introduce you if you want.”

“You expect me to actually speak to Skywalker? That’s insane.”

“Not really.”

“You thought he was myth not too long ago.”

“He’s great, but he’s a man.”

“I wouldn’t have a thing to say to him anyway.”

They walk blindly through the outside black until their eyes adjust and then they walk half blind through trees. There’s this large one that they come across, with long branches that are low to the ground and Finn climbs it because he can, though Rey climbs it because he does. They straddle one of the branches and face each other; each swing of their legs makes contact.

“Luke didn’t plan on coming back so soon.”

“Why did he?”

“He didn’t plan on Kylo Ren coming back either.”

“Oh.”

“It must be a trick.”

Finn shrugs but keeps his eyes on the rough bark beneath him. “Skywalker would know.”

“I hope so.” Then she smiles at him, “everything will end well because we’re together again.”

 

 

 

Kylo knows the second Luke Skywalker sets foot on the planet. He thinks nothing of it, facing the Jedi as his prisoner was something Kylo accepted when he abandoned the Order. It was hard, but not harder than leaving things between him and Finn the way they were, broken and bleeding in the snow. He thinks nothing of it until hours have passed and still Skywalker had not shown his face.

His presence yet absence gave birth to a bizarre feeling; he’s given a vision of Ben, standing anxiously behind his master for long minutes while he appears to be meditating. He eventually asks the young man if he knows why he’s here, and the young man replies with an affirmative quickly followed by an apology. It’s an interrogation tactic, leaving victims to be terrorized by their own mind before anything’s begun. Kylo refuses to let it get to him.

Two days after his arrival on the planet, Kylo walks into the back room of the abode to find Skywalker seated before the mangled helmet of his father, staring at it in contemplation.

He had imagined this much differently; waiting in the entryway and listening to his approach in the force and in the foliage on the forest ground. Instead he feels like an intruder, and words escape him for a moment.

“I’m nothing like my father,” Luke says in a voice rough with age and disuse. “That’s not a bad thing but I have always been envious of Leia for having so much of him in her. This is grotesque by the way.”

“What do you want?”

“To see you I think.”

He stands, not like a young man, and walks to Kylo. He takes his face in his hands and runs a thumb along the scar bisecting it. Kylo lets him.

He’d gotten it in his head somehow that Luke Skywalker was weak, perhaps because of his failures and the light in him, but this wasn’t a weak man. For so diminutive a stature, his presence filled up the whole room and bore down on its occupants. He looks old now, and the calmness that he’s always had has this air of detachment.

“This is comfortable,” Luke remarks after he’s let him go, looking around the room. Translation: it’s more than Kylo deserves.

Kylo takes his seat in front of Darth Vader’s remains and ignores him while he silently communes with his grandfather.

Luke watches him for a while. “What do you say to it?”

“Many things,” he replies cryptically. “Is this how you intend to spend your time? Staring at me. Surely you’d be better served with your student.”

“Rey is off with some friend of hers, she was eager to get back to him the whole time.”

She’s with Finn. That causes some emotion to bubble up in him, and he stomps it down quickly but not quick enough. Luke’s face fills with understanding.

“The boy. You came back for the boy.”

Kylo doesn’t answer.

“Do you see him?”

“He comes here sometimes.”

“Oh. I’ll have to put a stop to that.”

Kylo turns to face him sharply, “what?”

“You are still shrouded in the dark and darksiders destroy what’s in front of them. I cannot allow these meetings with him to continue.”

Kylo balks at the man for a second, stunned by the sheer audacity. “Are you mad? Finn is the only reason I’m here, if you don’t permit me to see him, I have no reason to cooperate.”

“Yes you do. Failure means disaster for everyone.”

“You think I’d let Finn go down with your pathetic rebellion?”

“He’s about to become a pilot, not much you can do to protect him from here.”

“…you’re lying.”

“What do you think they’re doing? Rey is helping him train right now.”

Kylo’s face falls, as all that righteous anger drains into horror. Every stormtrooper was tested for piloting aptitude, he’d seen Finn’s scores and they weren’t anywhere near acceptable.

“You must let me see him, Finn’s no pilot.”

“He disagrees.”

Kylo stares at him for a second, then folds up in the chair and hides his face in his knees, “I knew when I came here that you’d use this opportunity to punish me, but Finn is the embodiment of everything you supposedly stand for. To use him like this is a testament to your hypocrisy.”

“I’m not punishing you or using Finn. I know what happened on that base, if you killed him too, you’d have fallen further than Vader. All that pain and anger and fear, would have turned cold.”

“How does sending him to his death fix any of that?”

“It’s who does the killing that matters, you know that.”

Kylo doesn’t say anything, just stays in his strangely childlike position. It causes Luke to soften a bit.

“Ben…”

Kylo looks up sharply with a face devoid of color, “if he dies, I’ll burn that new apprentice of yours alive. I’ll wear her ashes as I cut through every soul on this base and leave you to wade through their bodies once more.”

Luke seems taken aback before he sighs heavily and shakes his head in disappointment, and as he leaves, he hears the thumps and crashes of Kylo’s frustration being taken out on the walls enclosing him.

 

 

 

 She is Leia Organa. She’s a war hero, and her name is known throughout the galaxy and yet, seeing her brother sitting in her modest quarters gives her pause. Because he is Luke Skywalker the legend and force if he doesn’t look it now. Knowing and wise and powerful, like Obi-Wan when he faced Vader. That’s what happens when you encounter more of the stories than the subject.

“Dear sister, you are still so lovely,” Luke says. Though he isn’t looking at her, he’s looking at the lightsaber she took from Kylo that day and it hasn’t been touched it since.

“And I still can’t decide if I like the beard,” She says, sitting across from him. “The council wants to speak to Ben as soon as possible.”

“I’ll bring him around tomorrow if you’d like, my love.”

Leia cocks an eyebrow at him, “you’ve prevented Ben and Finn from seeing each other?”

“I see he’s already gone crying to his mother about it.”

“Among other things, he wanted me to ground Finn permanently. Why didn’t you come talk to me about this first? He gave me his conditions and I agreed, we had a deal.”

“It was a test and he failed. I had hoped to find more light in him, I was disappointed.”

“So you’ll take it back?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little much? You’re his monitor, why don’t you monitor them?” Leia asks.

“It’s not forever, he’ll just have to earn it.”

Leia doesn’t look convinced. “You haven’t forgiven him.”

Luke scoffs, “have you forgiven him?”

“Yes.”

Luke clearly wasn’t expected that answer, and he’s stunned for a moment. “Leia…”

“I couldn’t look at him at first, but then I forgave him and it was like this weight was lifted from me. I can look at him and see what’s left of Han. Be selfish just this once and forgive him.”

A crack in Luke’s calm façade finally appears.

"I thought we'd see each other again," he says and Leia fights the urge pull him into her arms. “It never occurred to me that we wouldn’t; I never dwelled on our last meeting.”

“I remember it; we were having a drink and he said ‘here’s to master Skywalker!’ then he put you in a headlock. That’s not a bad goodbye,” she says, smiling.

“It wasn’t one. Weeks, a month maybe, that’s how long I thought it would be. That’s my fault, but he shouldn’t have died the way he did; my students shouldn’t have died the way they did and I owe it to them to make sure evil never flourishes under my watch again.”

“You think Ben’s evil?”

“Yes, and no. I think he’s convicted, and unselfish, and capable of incredible cruelty, a perfect tool for evil. But he’s asking for help, which is the opposite of evil if there is any.”

“I don’t think he’s evil. You can’t love someone like Finn and be evil,” she says. “Have you met him yet?”

“The boy? No.”

“Speak with him before you make any more decisions, he puts everything in a new perspective. You’ll find him interesting.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Luke looks at Leia fondly, “I had the best times of my life with you. I’m sorry I stayed away so long.”

“No you aren’t.”

“I wasn’t but I am now. We left you, all of us did and that’s not right.”

“I had a cause, and people around me who shared that cause, that’s all I need.”

“I know that, but still.”

He goes quiet for a while and they go back to staring at the lightsaber between them.

“I’m surprised by how little forgiveness means,” Leia says. “I don’t think I’ll ever trust him like I did. I think the thought of him will always come uneasy. That’s the worst part; he’s here but it’s not at all the same. It’s better but it’s not good.

“There’s still light in him, isn’t there? Tell me he can find his way back,” She says to him.

She’d been confident all this time, but Luke has shaken her.

Luke leans closer to Leia and stares into her eyes, “your son will never be lost to the dark, to truly rid himself of the light would take more devastation than the entire universe could hold. All he has to do is choose the light but he must choose, and no amount of love or forgiveness can change that. But it can’t hurt.”

 

 

 

This time, Kylo is aware of Luke’s approach, and he waits for him just outside the abode. He can feel the scrutinization as he gets closer.

“Is that what your wearing?” Luke greets.

Kylo looks down at himself, “yes. What of it?”

“Those are Kylo Ren’s clothes.”

Indeed, he was dressed in the robes he donned every day during his time in the Order, with his helmet tucked under his arm.

“And I am Kylo Ren. That is who they wish to see.”

“Those clothes represent something you are trying to convince these people you have turned away from. And do you really want to walk through a rebel base dressed like that?”

Kylo looks over Luke’s own ensemble; it was so basically acceptable that it he would hardly warrant a second glance anywhere in the galaxy. He wasn’t even wearing a lightsaber. Kylo goes back inside and when he emerges a few minutes later, it’s in dark pants and worn boots and a light-colored shirt, and that’s how he stands before the strategic leaders of the resistance.

 

The room is modest, both in size and furnishings. There is a long table with nine very distinguished looking people sitting behind it, including General Organa. At its head sat a man in royal blue robes with grey at his temples and rings on his fingers. He, like the others, seemed perfectly at ease with Kylo’s presence, but these were politicians, they were calm until they weren’t.

“First, I’d like to thank Master Skywalker for answering our call and aiding us in our time of need, it is truly an honor,” the facilitating senator says.

Luke bows his head in acknowledgment.

“This session we have called today is an effort to gain knowledge of the First Order from one of its defectors, Kylo Ren. We believe that it has the potential to greatly affect the course of this war. This is not a court, we are not a jury, our purpose is not to determine any motivations or guilt; we leave that to the Master Jedi. However, all questions posed today must be answered and answered truthfully.” The senator leans forward in his seat and fixes him with an intense stare, “Do you understand, Kylo Ren?”

“I understand.”

“Then let us begin simply. What position did you hold in the Order, and what did it entail?”

“I didn’t have one.”

There’s a pause. “Excuse me?”

“I was not a member of the First Order.”

Both Leia and Luke run a hand over their eyes.

“Then how did you come to be in their company?”

“I was the apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke.”

The senator seemed to be waiting for Kylo to continue, and gave a very exasperated look when he didn’t.

“And what did that entail?”

“I learned things.”

He feels a very insistent push in the force.

“I was master of the Knights of Ren. We conducted missions that did not fit into the political purview of the First Order, though we utilized its resources freely.”

“Would you say that you have a comprehensive idea of the Order’s resources?”

“I would.”

The senators nod approvingly.

“What was an average mission for the Knights of Ren? That is to say, some element or elements that a significant portion of your missions shared.”

Kylo thinks for a moment. “Reconnaissance I suppose.”

“What was your most crucial mission?”

“Find Luke Skywalker.”

“Why?”

“The Supreme Leader believed he could rebuild the Jedi, who would pose a serious threat to the success of the Order.”

Several senators turn to whisper to each other.

The questioning continues on like that, exploratory but not searching. They wanted an idea of just how useful Kylo could be and in what way. He’s sure his full and complete recount of his time there will come later.

 

When it’s over Luke escorts him from the room and they walk leisurely through the base. Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker walking side-by-side and not one person gives them a second glance, he appreciates it.

“How do you feel?”

“Like I’m in an Ewok village,” Kylo says, looking around. “Everyone was tall in the order.”

“I’m sure, but I was referring to the meeting; you’ve just spent the last two hours spilling the secrets of your dark master.”

“He’s not in my master anymore, and I’ve made my peace with that.”

They walk in silence until their alone and far enough that they can’t hear the sounds of the rebellion.

“I loved your father,” Luke says without looking at him.

“Many people did,” he responds, unfazed. It was only a matter of time before the topic of Han Solo was brought up.

“You did too, that’s why you killed him.”

“He didn’t deserve our love.”

“Because he left?”

“Because he was nothing. A pirate, a smuggler.”

As a child, he’d been in awe of Han Solo. But then he grew up, and he started to see his confidence as cocksure, his values as dishonorable, his unique language as crass. He started to wonder why his mother, the princess, ever bothered with a man like him.

“He was a great man.”

“How can you say that? I never understood your obsession with him.”

“It’s not obsession Ben, it’s admiration. All those incredible things we achieved would not have been possible without Han.”

“He didn’t do any of it because he thought it was right, he did it for you and for Leia.”

“Is that so bad of a thing to act out of love? You did, Vader did.”

“And no one will call me a hero for it.”

“You don’t know that, history has been wrong. Tell me about him.”

“About Finn? Go speak to him yourself.”

“I will, but I want to see him how you see him.”

Kylo gives him a suspicious look, “why?”

“I want to know why he’s the one you’d follow into the hands of the enemy.”

Kylo closes his eyes, breathing deeply for a moment. “Finn is…he’s sincere in everything he does. He can make you feel like the most important thing in the universe, and the second his attention is averted, suddenly you’re the least. But nothing is nothing to him; everything, merely in its existence has meaning, has weight, makes him feel something. It should be exhausting, I know it is because I am the same, but it just _is_ for him. He’ll destroy you if he thinks he should, even if he’s saved you he’ll go back and destroy you. That’s true strength. “

They come to a stop when they reach the dwelling, and stand facing each other.

“You cannot keep him from me. You’ve seen the things I would do.”

“I have. You could’ve dragged him back to the Order but you didn’t, because you want him to love you.” Luke crowds himself into Kylo’s space. “I believe in you Ben.”

Kylo’s face crumples in disgust and he turns from his old master and disappears into the hovel.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me what you think


End file.
